In past blogs, we’ve discussed how to address low ticket sales with either well-timed discounts or planning ahead for slow periods. But in truth, low sales are usually attributed to structural issues within your organization.
When ticket sales are low, it’s easy to point to markers in audience behaviors such as a holiday or major event taking place at the same time, weather, or the blanket “no one is interested in fill in the blank.” While these are all items to keep in mind, having good structure to your pricing, on-sale timing, and messaging can help your organization maintain consistent ticket sales.
Ticket Pricing & Availability
If it has been a few years since you evaluated your ticket prices and/or scaling of your venue spaces, now is the time to start that project. Ticket prices should be appropriate for your market, and there should be a variety of prices available in your venues.
Date points to help you with the research include:
- Looking at the price ranges of other organizations in your area, especially those that use the same venue. How do your prices compare to others?
- Looking at your most recent production/event and seeing how many tickets sold per price level. Is there anything that stands out in this data such as levels that didn’t sell or ones that sold out very quickly?
- Looking at your entire price range to see if you have enough variety in prices. Do you have prices that are a good introduction for new audiences? Does your price range have enough levels between the highest price and lowest price to provide patrons with options?
Depending on your venue size, you might also want to consider not putting all seats on sale at once. Holding seats back from being on sale creates a sense of demand in the public view; it also can help you to fill your venue space so that your production “feels” fuller than it actually is.
On-Sale Timing
If you don’t give enough time for patrons to buy tickets, you aren’t going to reach your sales goals. The audience buying behavior has changed over the past few years, and while most of the purchasing does happen within the last week of an event, patrons are researching weeks to months in advance. And for those that are researching early, having tickets on-sale makes it very easy for them to make a purchase.
At a minimum an event should be on-sale eight weeks in advance of the opening, but being on-sale six months in advance will yield better results. You can also use your on-sale time to drive early purchasing with special discount offers. Also, having a longer window for ticket sales allows you to pivot easier if sales are starting to not stay on target. You won’t be making rushed decisions about discounts or messaging if you have time to evaluate and choose an appropriate path.
Messaging
As mentioned above, patrons are researching live events months in advance, so you want to make sure the information about your concert or productions is as informative as possible. We recommend that advertising for an event begins eight weeks before opening, but your public education efforts should begin well before advertising starts. From six months (best) to 12 weeks (acceptable) of your opening, start talking to the public about event. This means scheduling one social media post a week and including information in your emails. You should also have a dedicated landing page on your website for your event. The landing page is your best sales tool, as it provides you with the opportunity to give the public lots of information about your event. A few items to make sure you include on your landing page include:
- Dates and times of your event
- Ticket prices
- Venue information
- Event description
- Photos and/or videos of your event to give a sense of the “vibes”
- Background information about any guest artists or creators
You can take your landing page further with quick facts about production, links to a Spotify playlist, and links to YouTube videos.
If you have been dealing with consistently low tickets sale, it’s time to start evaluating your pricing, timing and messaging. Sticking with the same plan as you have always done; will yield the same results. To make meaningful advancements in sales, you need to be willing to make changes to your structure. Confluence Arts Solutions is here to help you get started with this process.